


i was born up in the sky (and i'm never gonna die)

by amosanguis



Series: creature AUs [60]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Highlander Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Chicago Cubs, Crying, Drama, Falling In Love, Gore, Immortal Anthony Rizzo, Immortal Kris Bryant, Immortals Revealed, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Alternating, PTSD, Pre-Immortal Kris Bryant, Temporary Character Death, Various Cameos - Freeform, title from a country song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 18:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10599279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: There’s a horrible scar across the left side of Anthony’s neck and Kris has always wondered how anyone could survive that type of injury.  Then Lester Holt is telling the world about people who can live forever as a slew of celebrity faces slide across the screen – and one of them is Anthony’s.Or, the one where Kris uses Anthony’s 1,900 years of life experience to come to terms with his own newfound Immortality.





	1. Fucking WikiLeaks.

**Author's Note:**

> \--Title from “Joy” by Bonnie Montgomery; many thanks to lostcoastlines for the super quick beta <333  
> \--lots of cameos though some become more prominent later in the story (namely the Billy Bones/Charles Vane pairing from _Black Sails_ who will one day have their own long fic)  
>  \--gladiator types mentioned: dimachaerus (I’m using the Wikipedia spelling here; a gladiator who fights with two swords) and samnite (a gladiator who uses one sword and a large shield)  
> \--some phrases and word choices may not be era-appropriate during the flashback sequences  
> \--most of this is from Kris’s POV, but it alternates with unnamed watchers’; parentheses are sometimes used to temporarily denote Anthony’s POV  
> \--author is assuming all baseball clubhouses have the same layout as the one in _Pitch_  
>  \--brief mention of Billy/Anthony, but it’s during a flashback before Billy/Charles or Anthony/Kris happen  
> \--everything the author knows about making a sword was gleaned from watching _Forged in Fire_  
>  \-- **content warnings** for casual mention of era-typical slavery; talk of the killing of a child immortal

-z-

 

“ _You want my head?_ ”

Kris hears Anthony shouting through the door and his hand freezes on the doorknob.

“You want my head, boy,  _come and take it!_   I’ll be in Chicago for the rest of the week.”

Then there’s a crashing and a thump followed by a string of profanity.  Slowly, Kris opens the door to Anthony’s place and sticks his head in.  He can see into the living room where Anthony is on his couch with his head in his hands, pressing the heels of his hands hard against his eyes as if trying to ward off a headache.

“Bad time?” Kris asks, keeping his voice low so not to startle Anthony.

Anthony’s hands fall away and Kris can see how red his eyes are – like Anthony hasn’t slept for a month.

Which he probably hasn’t.  None of them have. 

(Not since Lester Holt looked the world in the eye and said, “Breaking news tonight: Immortals are real and they walk among us.  More and more of our household names are revealed to be able to live forever – what is the Game?  And how have they managed to keep this hidden from the public for so long?”

Not since Anthony had called an emergency team meeting in the clubhouse to tell everyone that his first name had been  _Antonius_  and, rubbing at the thick scar on his neck, that his first death came in the sand of the colosseum on some emperor’s birthday.)

“You’re fine,” Anthony says, slumping into his couch and patting the cushion next to him.  Kris walks in and closes the door behind him and puts the bag of Chinese takeout on the coffee table.  “It’s just that everyone with a grudge suddenly has my phone number.  And now Congress,” he gestures to his muted TV where Kris sees Wolf Blitzer (not an Immortal) talking with Anderson Cooper (Immortal), “is going to hold a hearing to ‘discuss the issue’.” Anthony curls his fingers in the finger quote gesture as he rolls his eyes.

“What does that mean?” Kris asks, unpacking their food.

“It means they’re going to try to regulate us,” Anthony says, sitting up with a groan as he surveys the food.  “Immortals have been doing just fine without a high government stepping in for millennia – all Congress is going to do is make shit worse.”

Kris pauses lifting a wonton to his mouth and turns to Anthony, “You cut each other’s heads off for a magic jolt of electricity.”

“Yeah,” Anthony snags the wonton out of Kris’s hand, “but there’s a  _prize_  if we’re the last one left.”

“You don’t even know what the prize is!  And didn’t you say you guys only have, like, three rules?” Kris asks.

“That’s all we need,” Anthony says, shrugging his shoulders and making a shooing motion.  “If you do a lot of bad shit, you’re eventually going to kill the wrong person and someone’s gonna want their revenge – that’s how it works.  We’ve been policing ourselves forever.  We’re fine.”

Kris just stares.

Anthony looks over and flashes him a wide, innocent smile.

 

-x-

 

The first days after The Reveal were tense.  The reveal itself came from WikiLeaks when someone from the Watchers Society dumped the entirety of the organization’s database – including pictures, videos, and Chronicles (a fancy name, Kris thought, for the diaries of watchers assigned to an Immortal or Immortal pair) – online for all to see.

It took only a matter of hours before names of celebrities and athletes and politicians began pouring in. 

Michael Ealy, Keanu Reeves, Nicholas Cage, Kalani Queypo, and Michelle Obama were among of the earliest names released.

Turns out Clay Matthews of the Green Bay Packers had been an  _actual_  Viking and had been part of the army that sacked Paris; Mason Crosby, also of the Packers, and Sidney Crosby, of the Pittsburgh Penguins – who had been adopted by the Immortals Arminius and Charles Vane – were suspected by the Watchers to both be pre-Immortals (Arminius and Vane would later vehemently deny this, stating that they hadn’t adopted any pre-Immortals since 1912 and the incident with the  _Titanic_ ).

Anderson Cooper had been reporting the news since he was seventeen, watching as men threw crates of tea into Boston Harbor.  Historians everywhere seemed to collectively lose it when Anderson’s Chronicle revealed his  _closeness_  to various Founding Fathers.

In baseball, Ian Kinsler and Brian Anderson, who had retired recently from the White Sox for then unknown reasons (he had already started the process of phasing himself out of the baseball world and was getting ready to disappear), had been best friends and lovers since the Civil War – when their first deaths came in the backwoods of Kentucky in 1862. 

In the late 1920s, Ian and Brian had run into Anthony Rizzo in California and they had all spent a little less than a year wandering around together.  They split up when Anthony had his attention drawn away by a little black boy in Pasadena named Jackie.

 

-

 

According to his chronicle, Anthony Rizzo was born  _Antonius_  in 158 A.D. to a house slave who worked a senator’s villa on the outskirts of Rome.  When he was 15, he was sold to the Ludus Magnus, the gladiator school attached to the colosseum at the center of Rome.  At 21, he made his debut as a dimachaerus – and won easily; by 26, he had 16 more victories, two draws, and only one loss to his name.

He was 27 when he got his second loss – when his knee gave out from under him and the samnite he was fighting, who had just been moving in for a wounding thrust to the shoulder, couldn’t get out of the way in time and his sword slid across Anthony’s neck. 

His first watcher writes later of the incident:  _A most tragic accident and one the samnite pays for dearly; Antonius was the most popular gladiator for the past three fighting seasons and so the crowd roars for his death.  The Emperor himself had no choice but to send in the guard to exact their revenge for them – lest someone leap into the arena themselves._

(Anthony himself remembers hearing the samnite curse and drop his swords and the referee kneeling beside him – blocking out the sun – and the crowd’s shocked gasps; he remembers the pain and the panic before it all just simply… faded away.)

The chronicler goes on to say that Antonius was quickly picked up by an Egyptian Immortal, named Amr, a merchant who had easily bought his way into the colosseum to steal Anthony’s body before he revived. 

Amr then secreted the both of them out of Rome – after which the Watchers had lost track of them for three years.

 

-

 

When Ian and Brian moved on from Pasadena, Anthony stayed behind to mentor and sponsor Jackie.  He showed him how to crowd home plate, how to worry pitchers until they unraveled, and even how to fight (much to Mallie’s chagrin).

He stayed near the Robinson family for years – but none of the Chroniclers could tell exactly when Anthony had revealed what he was to them.  Even after Jackie’s gone and come back from the Army, has risen through the Negro Leagues, has been drafted by the Dodgers – throughout it all, Anthony stays.

A watcher writes:  _He’s been at this family’s side for going on twenty years now, and he, very obviously, hasn’t aged at all.  Surely, they are suspicious?_

 

Jackie has been playing with Dodgers for two years when Anthony leaves for Italy.

_It was a sad sight, Jackie standing with Tony at the airport.  They hugged for quite some time before Tony gave the man a shake – I couldn’t hear what he said, and his back was to me so I couldn’t read his lips – and patted his cheek several times.  And then he was gone.  Perhaps I should be thankful the reporters hadn’t known Jackie was in town or they would have swarmed the scene._

_I don’t know what Tony will be doing in Italy, but I’ll be sad to see him go.  I suppose this is how I shall end my last entry into_ Antonius’s _chronicle before it is passed over to an Italian counterpart._

 

-x-

 

“The fun thing is that I can show you all my cool stuff now,” Anthony says as he sets a cardboard box down in front of Kris as they sit at the dining room table.

Kris lifts an eyebrow.  Anthony may be almost 2,000 years old, but it was amazing watching him getting giddy off whatever exciting thing was happening around him.  Right now, it was apparently baseball artifacts.

“This was my first baseball bat,” Anthony says, pulling out a broken bat.  “I won this off Old Pete in France, either in 1917 or 1918, I can’t remember, before breaking it against a pitch.”

“And you kept it?” Kris asks, taking the bat carefully and looking at it.

Anthony shrugs and says, “Yeah.”  He wiggles his fingers at his head, “Sometimes things get fuzzy – things like this help me remember.”

“That makes sense,” Kris says.  “So, you fought in World War I?”

Anthony glances up before he nods.  Quietly, he says, “Yeah.  Kinda didn’t have a choice – I was already in France at the time.  I skipped all the wars after it, though – so World War II, Korea, Vietnam, everything in the Middle East – I figure, y’know what?  I helped you guys with your Revolution against England,” Anthony holds up his fingers and looks at the ceiling as he begins ticking them off, “the 1812 fiasco, the Civil War, the Mexican War, and World War I – I think I can use a bit of a break.  Besides, wars tend to attract other Immortals and I just wanted to focus on baseball.”

Kris wants to ask why Anthony would put himself through all of that – the blood and the danger and the trauma – but the question gets stuck in his throat and before he can work it free, Anthony’s reaching into the box again.

“This is from my time with the Robinsons,” Anthony says, pulling out an old photo album and passing it to Kris. 

Kris chuckles at the first picture – it’s Anthony and a young Jackie smiling wide at the camera as Jackie sits on Anthony’s shoulders.  The pictures progress in time and Jackie gets taller and taller – and Anthony doesn’t change at all.

“I told Jackie almost right away what I was,” Anthony says, his voice quiet again as he reminisces.  “It was kinda a dumb thing to do – he could have freaked out, we might have had a falling out – friendships end all the time for a lot less.”  Anthony shrugs.  “I don’t know – kids are just more willing to accept stuff like that, I guess.  He just wanted to know if my experience could help him with his swing,” he laughs.

Kris balks at the idea of a creature as old as Anthony picking him at a young age to help groom him into a baseball legend.

There’s a picture of Anthony standing beside Jackie in his Army uniform; of him and Jackie and Rachel; of him and Jackie and Rachel and first one child, then two, then three. At the end of the album, Anthony stands with his arm around Rachel, the both of them looking solemn – in the sleeve with the photo is a program from Jackie’s funeral.

They stay quiet as Kris looks at the picture and the program.

Anthony breaks the moment by reaching into the box again.  He pulls out various balls signed by the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth and Ted Williams and Cy Young, two gloves that belonged to Jackie, programs from different games from all across the country – including the 1907 and 1908 Cubs World Series games, both of which had been carefully stored in plastic bags.

“Oh, wow,” Kris whispers.  “You were just all over the place, weren’t you?”

Anthony laughs.  He lets Kris look his fill – answers all of his questions – before he starts to put things back in the box, but letting Kris hold onto the two programs for a while longer.

 

-x-

 

Anthony’s chronicle shows that he and his teacher, Amr, move around the ancient world together for nearly fifty years before an Immortal named Drust takes Amr’s head.  He tries for Anthony’s, too, but – fueled by his grief and his rage – Anthony easily defeats Drust and takes his quickening.

Anthony slips in and out of the Watchers’ eyes for the rest of the century – mostly appearing at the end of other Immortals chronicles as he takes their heads.

He works occasionally as a body guard or mercenary-for-hire – putting his swordsmanship to good (and sometimes bad) use.

By 300, he’s gone again and the Watchers assume his head’s been taken.

But in 324, Anthony is found by a Watcher on the trail of Methos.  Anthony’s settled down in a little mountain village, caring for two young girls whose mother he’d fallen in love with, but had tragically passed the winter before.  The watcher immediately recognizes him from the very detailed sketches of Anthony’s previous chronicler.

_Antonius is managing the only inn in town and the girls he’s adopted, Catarina and Celia, have the run of the place – their high-pitched giggling mixing with the singing of drunken men.  If not for the hideous, and quite distinctive, scar across the left of his neck, and the many long hours I have spent studying our missing Immortals – I would not have recognized him._

_It should be noted that he is going by_ Antony _now.  Watching him with the young children, it is hard to believe this same man was once a revered gladiator as he is so gentle with them._

_I spend much of my time by the inn’s great fire.  I would like to stay for much longer than the three days the weather is keeping me here, but time is of the essence and Methos is so quick to disappear._

In 326, a full-time watcher stops at the inn – playing at being a travel-weary merchant.  But where he had heard there was two little girls – he finds only one; where he had heard about the constant exuberance in the atmosphere – he finds only subdued whispers, the air around him choking with depression.

“Innkeeper lost his daughter,” one man carefully, drunkenly, explains, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they were alone.  He sways forward, his eyes wide and just this side of manic, “She died – and then she  _came back_.  So he took her to the mountain’s peak.  No one knows what happened, just that he returned alone.”

The watcher writes:  _I understood then the melancholy abundant – for even at his relatively young age, Antony must have known the trials that would face an Immortal so young and decided to not subject the girl to such a fate._

_Oh, how my heart breaks for him._

 

-x-

 

The team has universally rallied around Anthony – easily deflecting questions meant to get under their skin, harshly correcting any reporter they feel is trying to slight him, balling their fists when an opposing player’s snipes get too far out of line.

But there’s not much they can do about the talking heads or the video that goes viral of Skip Bayless sneering just as he’s to start a segment about Anthony.

“I don’t even want to look at him,” Skip says.  “The man’s a [bleep]ing baby killer.  He chops heads off innocent people.  Why the [bleep] are we looking at him?”

Kris feels like his breath has been punched out of his lungs and he immediately calls Anthony.  “Dude,” he says, and he can’t get anything else out.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Anthony says immediately.  “I loved that little girl and I did what was best for her.”  He pauses and Kris can just picture him glaring at his tv, hands curling into fists at his side.  “You believe that, don’t you?”

“Of course, you know that I do,” Kris says.  “Look, I’m coming over.”  And then he’s hanging up and running out of the door.

He’s half-way to Anthony’s home when he gets the text:  _Emergency meeting at the clubhouse.  Management wants me to say something._

Kris pulls into a random parking lot to turn around and text back:  _I’ll be right there._

_You don’t have to._

_Shut up._

 

-

 

“Skip Bayless doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Anthony says, glancing from Carrie Muskat to his own knees to Kris beside him – Kris being there a pointed display of support on Kris’s part.  Anthony has his fingers interlocked and he’s leaning forward in his chair and he keeps shaking his head.

To Kris, he looks for all the world like he’s trying not to fall apart.  So he leans closer so that their shoulders are touching.  Anthony settles against him as he leans back in his chair.  He takes a deep breath and starts again.

“I only knew Cecelia for six years before she was taken by a fever,” Anthony says.  “I mourned her as soon as she got sick – I knew my village didn’t have the right medicine for her, and I knew that she was a pre-Immortal.”  Anthony swallows.  “And I knew what I was going to have to do.

“What  _Skip_  doesn’t get,” Anthony spits the name like a curse, “is that no Immortal who has spent only 8 years as a human has any real chance at survival.  Even if I protected her and cared for her – that’s no life.  She’d have no independence from me.  I was born a slave, so I know just how valuable freedom is – and she wouldn’t have had it.  Not in any real way that counts.

“She would have had to watch her sister grow up, become a woman, get married, have kids – all these things her child’s body would never do.  That sort of thing fosters resentment and anger.  I spared her all of that.”  Anthony licks his lips and his breathing stutters before he adds, “But make no mistake, I hate myself for it.  And because I would do it again.”

Kris doesn’t stop himself as he reaches over and grabs Anthony’s hand and squeezes it.  Carrie’s eyes zoom right in on them, but Kris doesn’t let go – just stares her down in challenge.

“Where do you plan on going from here?” Carrie asks.

“I’m trying to stay in the moment,” Anthony answers without hesitation.  “Tomorrow is always so soon in coming, but,” he shrugs, “ _all things pass_.  Keeping that in mind, you don’t have to forget the hard things.  The day that I forget Cecelia or any of the others will be the day I let someone take my head.” 

Then Anthony looks down at his and Kris’s joined hand, squeezes even tighter – like he was making sure Kris wasn’t going to disappear.

 

-x-

 

The rest of the 300s and into the early 400s, sees Anthony staying in the Italian mountains until the Vandals sack Rome.  After that, he begins heading North – looking for quiet.

He finds himself in modern-day Sweden and while passing through a small village he meets Arminius – another Immortal only a century older than himself.

His watcher at the time reports:  _I myself cannot stay.  A shield maiden suspects me of being a spy from a neighboring state so I would much rather cut and run.  Arminius’s watcher, who is already within his inner circle, can take up the duties of watching Antony should she so please._

 

-

 

In 456, Antony has settled as a farmer in southern Norway – he has pigs, chickens, a wife named Francis, and a little slave named Nikolai.  From the start, their relationship had been tumultuous.  Nikolai had belonged to Francis – he was a war slave given as a gift to her from her father for her wedding day.

 _I can hear them arguing from the creek_ , the watcher writes,  _Antony wants to free Nikolai, but Francis refuses.  To paraphrase her argument: the slave was a gift, and they needed the help on the farm and they had no money to pay him to work as a freeman._

Francis dies in 460 and Antony doesn’t hesitate to free Nikolai.  To the watcher’s astonishment, Nikolai stays.  But when the village is raided by a neighboring kingdom, the watcher realizes why when Nikolai, who he had seen clearly struck in the chest with an arrow and fall down dead, is alive again the next day.

They stay together for a almost fifty years – watchers recording how tactile, how  _familiar_  they are with each other – until Antony abruptly leaves, seemingly disappearing into the night.

_I just witnessed Nikolai falling to his knees in the snow, screaming Antony’s name into the darkness.  I don’t know what happened._

 

-

 

_A month has passed and Antony has not returned.  Every night Nikolai stands at the door of their home, staring out into the night._

_He’s waiting._

 

-x-

 

The first time Anthony is asked if there were any pre-Immortals in the Cubs clubhouse, he keeps his voice level and said, “No.”

The second time he’s asked, his eyes shutter and go cold and he straightens to his full height – the whole of the locker room going quiet in the face of his anger.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” he snarled, stepped –  _stalked_  – closer to the reporter.  “Do you know the danger a question like that puts someone in?   _Don’t you people get it?_ ”  He shouted the last words, his hands curled into dangerous fists.

Kris had darted in, quickly wrapped his arm around Anthony’s chest and pulled him backwards.

“Forget it, man, c’mon,” Kris whispered, putting his lips to Anthony’s ear.

Anthony snorted and turned away from the reporter, putting his head into Kris’s chest.  The press is quickly shuffled away.

 

-

 

_You thought I was gone?  Think again, fucker.  I’ve found you._

Kris stares at the text on Anthony’s phone.  “Who is it?” he asks, afraid of the answer.

“An ex,” Anthony answers, taking his phone back.  “I don’t know what he’s going to do, just,” Anthony sighs, shakes his head, “just be careful.”

 

-

 

 ** _Nik (@Nikzzzy)_  ** _Wouldn’t it be hilarious if @KrisBryant_23 was a pre-Immortal?_

 ** _Nik (@Nikzzzy)_  ** _oh wait he is #youhearditherefirst_

 ** _Nik (@Nikzzzy)_  ** _sorry @ARizzo44 haven’t you told him yet? Hope this doesn’t disrupt your game! #gocubsgo_

The tweet goes viral and is seconded by other known Immortals with grudges against the Cubs before being hesitantly verified by a well-respected Immortal reporter.

Nik then takes a selfie of himself at Wrigley Field and sends it to Anthony.   _I’m here for your head. Boy_.

 

-

 

The third time Anthony is asked if there were any pre-Immortals in the Cubs clubhouse, he has tears in his eyes and he says, “You already know the answer.”  He looks over to Kris, who’s staring right back at him, still in shock, and looks away as he says again, “You already know the answer.”

 

-

 

Anthony shows up at Kris’s place with blood on his face – his body thrumming with excess energy.

“Rizz?” he asks, because he’s never seen Anthony like this – not even after they won the World Series together.  He just looks so  _bright_.

“I took care of it,” Anthony says.

Kris reaches over and tugs Anthony into a tight hug.  They crash together and Kris is forced back a step and when their hips brush, he feels that Anthony’s half-hard.

“Sorry,” Anthony says, pulling himself away, but not quite pulling out of the hug, his lips still brushing against Kris’s neck as he explains.  “Happens after I receive a quickening.”

Kris feels his breath hitch in his throat and he suddenly knows exactly what’s happened tonight – so he pulls Anthony all the way into his house, slams the door closed before slamming Anthony against it.  He grabs Anthony’s face and kisses him hard and fast and deep.

They’ve been building up to this for so long – Kris knows it.  Had known it since long before he knew what Anthony was or what he’s done.

Then Anthony’s flipping their positions and he’s using his knee to knock Kris’s out from under him, lowering Kris so he was at Anthony’s level – his hand sneaking around behind Kris’s lower back and pulling them flush together.

 

-

 

The next morning, Kris wakes up to a string of texts from Bryce – a mixture of congrats on his newfound “pre-Immortality”, worry, and a link to an article featuring a blurry photo of someone who may or may not be Anthony and someone else getting into a car, the headline reading: IMMORTAL WHO SPILLED BEANS ON BRYANT MISSING.

 _Shame_ , Kris texts Bryce.   _I hope he’s okay_.

_Don’t we all ;)_

 

-x-

 

Throughout the 500s and 600s, Antony stays in the Mediterranean region – running a merchant shipping company; he goes up and down the ship’s hierarchy as he pleases – spending some decades as a captain or an owner, and others as a regular deckhand.

Sometimes he keeps a human family – usually marrying an older widow who already has children and caring for the family for years afterwards.  He takes very few heads during that time – only taking on outright challenges.

(He does his best to ignore the politics around him – just simply watching as the empires around him rise and fall.)

 

-

 

His watcher writes:  _Antony has made yet another trip down to the sea village to visit Lin, a woman he seems to have once considered a dear friend.  From what I can tell from the rest of his Chronicle – his behavior is not entirely unusual as he is one to remain invested in the humans he comes into contact with.  Yet I wonder because he shows no interest in Lin’s children, an oddity for him, to be sure._

(Her name is Lin and Anthony knew right away that she had the spark of Immortality within her – it just needed to be lit.  But it never happens and she lives out her life – lives a long and happy, even without himself in most of it.  When their time is up, he moves along the coast, and watches her from a distance.

She’s in her 70s when she passes quietly in her sleep – and she never wakes up.)

_Antony does not attend the funeral, but I must make note of the two days he spent in Lin’s village after her death.  He stayed close to the place her body was housed, seeming to watch the area closely._

_I wonder if she was a pre-Immortal?  It is common knowledge amongst the Watchers now that only pre-Immortals who die violently become Immortal – so if Lin’s passing was peaceful, she should not have turned, and those first deaths can take so long to wake from._

 

-

 

(It’s 1917 and Anthony watches as sniper fire takes out half of his unit before he can move them to safer ground.

“I fucking hate guns,” he says to no one in particular, doesn’t notice when a young private pulls out a journal and writes the quote down.  He turns and looks at his men, says, “I’m going to scout ahead – stay the fuck here until I call for you.”

“And if you don’t?” asks one soldier, a young Italian American boy named Vin.

“Don’t worry about that,” Anthony says, smirking and giving them a half nod before he’s on his feet and sprinting to the next available piece of cover.  The sniper fires two quick shots and that’s all it takes for Anthony to see where they’re at – the scope glinting in the sunlight.

Three hours later, the sniper and two more are dead from bullets from Anthony’s gun and a little town is secured.  The next day, the Army’s moved in and a new squad arrives.

Anthony watches them rolling in on the tanks and trucks.

“Holy shit,” he grins, recognizing one of the men jumping off a tank turret.  “How are ya, Pete?”

Old Pete smiles back and shakes his hand and they have a baseball game going within the hour.)

 

-x-

 

Anthony’s grinning up at the W flag during practice before he’s suddenly grabbing Kris and tucking his head down and he’s screaming to everyone, “ _Get inside!_ ” in a voice that has everyone moving immediately.

They’re almost to the dugout when a shot rings out and Anthony falls to his knees – but even as he goes down, he shoves Kris ahead of him and down the stairs and screams for him to get into the clubhouse.  The tide of bodies carrying Kris halfway down the tunnel before he manages to break free of the press of his teammates, the coaches.  Then Kris turns to look for Anthony – expecting to see him right behind him. 

Except he’s not.

Except he’s on his back and his limp body is sprawled half-way down the staircase, his legs still stretched out towards the field; his eyes are wide and stare right through Kris as blood – god,  _so much blood_  – pours down the stairs, out of Anthony’s mouth.

Kris thinks he’s screaming, he just knows that there are too many arms holding him back, keeping him from getting to Anthony.  Then he sees Zobrist and Baez carefully dash out and grab Anthony’s wrists and pull him as fast as they can into the tunnel.

Kris collapses to his knees and pulls Anthony into his lap – he sees one bullet wound in Anthony’s chest and another in his thigh; he puts his face against Anthony’s and begins rocking back and forth.

Distantly, he remembers Anthony saying, “We still die.  It’s just not permanent.”  But right now, right at this moment, it doesn’t seem true – what if Immortals actually  _did_  have a finite number of lives?  What if Anthony’s run out and he doesn’t wake up?

He hears Joe talking to 9-1-1, hears Kyle and John and Mike talking to their families.  He feels someone leaning against him, their arms wrapped around his shoulders as they cry themselves.

“It’s okay,” they say, and Kris recognizes that it’s Addi’s voice.  “He’s immortal, he’ll be okay.  They don’t call them Immortals for nothing.”

Kris just closes his eyes tighter.

“Cops are on their way,” Joe is saying.  “They’ll have this placed locked down in no time – they’ll get whoever did this.”

Kris nods, opens his eyes to look up at Joe – but he gets stuck on the trail of blood down the runway.  Then there’s a gasp and Anthony’s rolling onto his side as his body is wracked with harsh coughs before he finally spits out the blood that must have filled his lungs.

Anthony gropes around blindly until his hand lands at the back of Kris’s neck and then he’s pulling him down.

Kris’s tears start all over again as he hugs Anthony tightly.

 

-

 

Kris and Addison help Anthony to the showers, removing his bloody and soiled uniform.  Then they’re helping him to his stall before he waves them and the rest of his hovering teammates back.  His eyes search out their press manager and he tells them, “Send in any reporters.”  His voice was cold, and it brokered no room for argument.

Kris almost leaves the room – wanting nothing to do with the cameras – but the urge to keep Anthony in sight, the urge to keep touching him, keeps his feet from moving. 

So instead, he settles on the floor behind Anthony’s chair, his back pressed against the chair, facing away from the cameras and the microphones.  Anthony has one arm across his stomach to hold Kris’s hand underneath the armrest.

“Forgive me for not standing,” Anthony says, his voice cold and calm as he eyes the obviously nervous reporters, “there’s still a bullet in my leg that I haven’t taken out yet.”

“Can you tell us what happened today?” Carrie asks, her eyes darting down to Kris and their joined hands – but, just like last time, she doesn’t say anything.

“Someone tried to jumpstart Kris’s immortality,” Anthony says, voice deadpan.  He closes his eyes briefly before he opens them again – he looks directly into the many cameras.  “I’m just going to say this once: the next time something like this happens, whoever is at the other end of the gun had better  _pray_  that the cops find them before I do.

“And Kris is fine, by the way,” Anthony says, pointedly looking at each reporter.  “But if he wasn’t – no law could keep them safe from me.”

 

-

 

There’s no real time for the media or the baseball world to react to Anthony’s threats (promises).  The next day, someone comes after Kris with a knife.

Anthony isn’t there, he’s already inside the park, but Kris is quick to find him and pull him into the relative privacy of an empty video room.

“Security’s dealt with it,” he reassures Anthony, his eyes staring blankly into the middle distance.  He leans more heavily against Anthony.  “But what if they’re not so quick next time?”

“There won’t be a next time,” Anthony tells him, squeezing Kris’s hand as he presses a soft kiss to Kris’s temple.  “You’re just going to have to stay with me until this all blows over.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Kris asks, pushing slightly off Anthony to look him in the eye.  “What if they keep coming after me so that I play for the Cubs forever?”  Anthony opens his mouth to answer, but Kris cuts him off: “Your threats obviously don’t mean anything to some people and you can’t kill everyone who comes after me – you’ll just get yourself locked up and you won’t do me any—” he stops suddenly.  Then he says, “Anthony, what if  _you_  did it?”

Anthony stares.  He blinks slowly, trying to comprehend.  And when he does, he jumps away from Kris – dropping his hand as if he were burned.

“How could you ask me that?” he whispers, choking on just the thought of it.

Kris is on his feet immediately and he shouts: “Because if you don’t do it,” he points to the door of the video room they were in, gesturing to all the outside world, “someone out there  _will_.”

Anthony stumbles backwards, his eyes filling with tears as he shakes his head.  His back hits the wall and then his knees give as he slides down – he puts his elbows on his knees and runs his fingers through his hair.

Kris crouches down in front of him – gently takes Anthony’s hands away from his face.  Anthony doesn’t look up.

“I need it to be you,” he says, putting his forehead to Anthony’s.  “I need it to be you.”

 

-

 

“I’ll be right here when you wake up, Kris,” Anthony says, his hand on the back of Kris’s neck and as he brought their foreheads together.

Kris nods.

Anthony’s other hand comes up, resting on the side of Kris’s face.  He swipes his thumbs over Kris’s cheeks – and then everything goes black.

 

-x-

 

_We have lost Antony again._

_He has abandoned all his usual haunts._

_While his disappearance may have something to do with the new Immortal he stumbled across, I cannot say for certain that this is the case.  The last I saw of them, they were arguing rather vehemently though I could not discern the topic._

_From what I have read of him, Antony is not one to take a new Immortal’s head – but.  But he is also not one to be trifled with.  And I fear that this new Immortal, believing himself to be too wholly invincible, may not have realized this._

_I will try again in the morning to pick up the trail._

 

-

 

It’s at the turn of the 9th century that Anthony is found again – up in the north, part of a Viking invasion force that lands in what is now England, wearing a bear skin.

_We Watchers are stretched thin, but we are enough that I have had time to study our missing Immortals.  And, oh, am I glad that I have.  For as I follow the Immortal Clæg, I soon recognize Antony – the scar on the left of his neck and his symmetrical features being the giveaways._

_Clæg and Antony are the berserkers of the invading force; both honor the bears of Odin._

_Their king, Ragnar Lothbrok, seems to have some sort of idea of their power as he consistently has them at the frontlines.  As things are now, I am sure that Lothbrok would attribute any_ resurrection _to the gods._

 

-

 

_Clæg has left Lothbrok first and Antony is not long to follow._

_Antony makes his way eastward; Clæg heads south down to Egypt._

The Watcher looks up from his writings – he knows it’s vague, knows that there’s no other real way to put it as his eyes flick from one ship to the other as he decides who to chase.  He had originally been assigned to Klay, but Antony had a much longer history of disappearing.

And with that thought – he closes his book, and boards Antony’s boat.

 

-x-

 

Kris wakes with a gasp and panic thick in his throat.

 

-

 

“You don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Anthony says to Theo in the locker room, right in front of everyone.  He glances at Kris, but Kris’s head is lowered, his shoulders hunched in.

Theo doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t even look upset – he just looks resigned.  He stares hard at Anthony for a beat before he’s glancing at Kris.  Then his eyes are back on Anthony and he’s saying, “Fine.”

And then he’s turning on his heel and then he’s gone.

Joe Maddon isn’t nearly as forgiving and he spends almost half-an-hour screaming at Anthony until Anthony finally slams his hands down on Joe’s desk and screams back: “I made it quick!” and “Do you think if I had had the  _choice_ —”

And Kris stops listening.

 

-

 

After the news breaks, people stop coming after him.

Bryce sends him another long string of texts – demanding to know how Kris was doing and if Anthony was treating him well. 

The next day, Bryce posts a picture on each of his social media accounts of the two of them when they were just kids, their arms slung over each other’s shoulders.  He adds the caption:  _I still love you, bro. #tbt_

Kris runs his fingers through his hair and fights back tears as he thinks about having to watch Bryce grow old without him.  He looks up at the ceiling, takes in a deep breath and counts to ten, before he can bring himself to look back down at his phone.

He texts Bryce a string of emojis he knows will convey what he’s feeling.  And when Bryce responds in kind, Kris smiles and, for the moment, everything feels like it’ll all be just fine.

 

-

 

Anthony’s right there – always, he’s so close.  Not even in that choking sort of way – he’s just  _there_ , a steady and reassuring presence he can sense now in more ways than one.

“You know the rules,” Anthony had said when Kris had woken from his first death.  “One: there can be  _only one_ ; two: no fighting on holy ground; and three: only one combatant per fight, no fighting if one is unarmed.  Welcome to Immortality, Kris Bryant.”

He hadn’t laughed as he helped Kris to his feet.

“Once the season’s over,” he’d said, brushing imaginary lint off Kris’s shirt with one hand and rubbing the excess ache out of Kris’s neck with the other, “I’ll get you a sword and we’ll start training.  If anyone tries to Challenge you in the meantime, I’ll take them.”

“I get a sword?” Kris asks, leaning forward so his head fell onto Anthony’s shoulder – Anthony’s one hand kept rubbing at Kris’s neck while his other came up to rest gently on Kris’s hip.

“Yeah, you’ll get a sword,” Anthony answers, his voice lowered, his breath ghosting against Kris’s ear.  “You need something long and as close to a baseball bat as possible.”

“What do you use?” Kris asks, pulling back slightly to look at Anthony with furrowed eyebrows.  “I’ve never even seen a sword around this place.”

“A gladius,” Anthony says, “well, two of them,” as he steps back and leads Kris towards the bedroom.  Over his shoulder, he says, “We all tend to use the weapons of our era.  It’s just what we’re comfortable with.”  Once in the room, Anthony drops to his knees and pulls a long wooden box out from under his bed.  “I forged these swords 200 years ago, Kris, and they’re still as good as new.”

With a flourish, Anthony opens the box.

“They’re two inches longer than what I used in the arena,” Anthony says, pulling one of the swords out of its scabbard and holding it up to the light.  There was a Damascus ladder pattern going down the center of the blade that tapered into a point just before the end of the sword; the pummel was a dark wood decorated with silver.  Inside the box, lay another sword – and if he took it out of its scabbard, Kris would bet they were identical.

“You made these?” Kris asks, awed.

“Yeah,” Anthony says, passing it over to Kris who takes it carefully.  “And over winter, if I can’t find a suitable one for you from my collection – I’ll make yours, too.”

Kris’s eyes dart up in shock – the look on his face eliciting a loud laugh from Anthony.  Kris recovers enough to shrug his shoulders and say, “I bet you make all your students’ swords.”

“Only my favorites,” Anthony says.  He seems to sober as he adds, “And I haven’t had a favorite in a long time.”

Kris looks at him – watches as Anthony gets that faraway look in his eyes, the one that means he’s remembering.  Kris wants to ask more, but he can’t bring himself to.  Instead he passes the sword back and says, “I can’t wait.”

Anthony offers him a brief smile as he puts the sword away.  He shakes himself and says, “I made these two as an adjustment to the longer swords that were being developed.  They work for me because I’ve had so long to practice.  You know,” he pauses, looking at Kris thoughtfully.  “How are you with axes?”

And in that moment, it all seemed suddenly so real to Kris – he pictured himself standing over someone with an axe in his hand, getting ready to  _kill_  someone.  To  _take their head_.  And Anthony was just standing there and talking about it like he couldn’t decide which play to make.

He felt himself beginning to panic – but, as usual, Anthony seemed to  _get it_ , his voice soothing as he pulls Kris in close.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “you’re so new and I forget that.  I’m sorry.  Don’t worry, Kris, you’ve got time.  You’ve got plenty of time.”

Later, when they’re sitting across from each other at Anthony’s dinner table, Anthony sets his fork down and says.  “I know you’re freaked out, and I know this is all a mess, but unless you become a monk or something and move onto holy ground for the rest of eternity – there is going to come a time when you have to take a head.  It might not be this year, or this decade, even, but you’ll have to eventually.”

“I know,” Kris says, not looking up from moving his mashed potatoes around.

“Okay,” Anthony says – and he drops the subject.

 

-

 

The media, however, does not. 

Even when the Cubs clearly make Anthony and Kris unavailable for questions, their teammates bear the brunt of questions like: “how did Anthony feel after he killed Kris” and “has Bryant taken his first head yet?”

Addison is the first to snap and punch a beat reporter in the face.  Later, when Anthony has his arm slung around him and is holding the kid close, he asks, “So what the question?”

Addi shakes his head, rubs his hand over his face as he leans further into Anthony’s reassuring bulk.  “He asked what it was like to play with a baby killer,” he answers, not looking up.  “It was the third time I’d gotten that question and, man, I just snapped.”

Anthony nods as he rests his cheek on Addison’s head.  “I’m sorry, Addi.”

Addison pulls back a little and looks Anthony in the eye and says, “It’s not your fault, dude.  You are what you are, you’ve done the things you’ve done – yeah, a lot of them were kinda horrible and more than a little scary – but, from what I can see, dude, you haven’t been that way in a long time.  You’ve been nothing but great to me.  You’re always looking out for everyone on the team – it’s time to let us look out for you for a change, okay?”

Anthony smirks before he pulls Addison in for a real hug and says, “After a speech like that?  How can I refuse!”

Addison just laughs into Anthony’s shoulder before he stands and gives him a playful shove.

 

-x-

 

Antony spends much of the Dark Ages traveling around England and apprenticing under as many elite blacksmiths as he can find.  He learns all he can about the techniques and technology used all over the world before he sets about inventing new designs and patterns that don’t weaken the blade.

He gets very good at it and word spreads – not just among the humans, but among other Immortals as well.

 

-

 

Antony’s Watcher shudders when he sees a dark cloaked figure riding through the city gates.  The woman beside him bows her head, her lips moving briefly before she turns back to him.

“Worry not,” she says, “I doubt Arminius has any ill-intention towards Antony.”

“We’ll see,” he says.  For the past 20 years, Arminius had killed every Immortal who crossed his path.  He wasn’t head-hunting, per se, but he certainly wasn’t letting anyone go.  Arminius rides straight for Antony’s forge, pulling his horse up to a quick stop, before dismounting.

The two Watchers look on as Antony immediately drops what he was working on to greet Arminius with a wide smile and a tight hug.

“I wasn’t aware they knew each other,” Arminius’s Watcher says.

Antony’s Watcher snorts.  “We have so many missing years on him, it’s a surprise we know anything about Antony at all.”

Antony and Arminius talk and gesture animatedly with each other as Arminius leads Antony to his horse – a black animal with two white markings above each eye, it was large though it appeared small with Arminius astride it.

“I can’t read their lips,” Arminius’s Watcher says with a frustrated sigh. “But it looks like German.”

Antony’s Watcher agrees with a nod of his head and a small noise in the back of his throat.

They watch on as Arminius unties a large parcel from the back of the horse’s saddle and hands it over to Antony, as Antony takes it over to one of his workbenches, shooing an apprentice out of his way, and unwraps the bundle.

It is a broken sword.

The two Watchers share a confused look.

(“Can you do anything with this?” Arminius asks.

Antony doesn’t even bother looking over at the other Immortal as he huffs an offended laugh and inspects the sword before him.  He picks up the blade and walks out to inspect it in the sunlight.

“My dear friend,” he says, “how about I just make you a better sword?”

Arminius lifts an eyebrow.

“You heard me,” Antony says, putting one hand on his hip and the using the other to gesture at the pieces of sword in front of him.  “There are a lot of pieces here, Arminius, and the amount of metal it would take to fix this could just as easily be used to furnish you with a better sword.”

“This sword has been with me a for hundred years,” Arminius says.

“Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t have fallen down a mountain,” Antony quips, smirking even as Arminius gritted his teeth.

“I told you,” he says, “the  _mountain_  fell on top of  _me_.”

“Yeah,” Antony says, “landslides suck.  Look, I’ll only charge you half if you let me use what’s left of this – that way you’ll still technically still have your sword.  How does that sound?”

“Sounds fine,” Arminius says with a wave of his hand.  Then he’s smirking and leaning in close, asking, “Know where a tired man can stay the night with some good company?”

“I might have an idea.”)

 

-x-

 

“What is that?” Kris asks when Anthony settles on the couch beside him, a piece of paper clutched tightly in his hands.

“A letter asking me to appear before Congress,” Anthony answers, his voice cold as he stares at nothing. “They want me to speak ‘on the matter regarding Immortals’.”

“Why?” Kris asks, keeping his voice quiet.

Anthony glances down at the letter, reads off: “‘Due to your advanced age and many experiences, you are being summoned to submit testimony before the United States Congress and its Immortal Investigative Committee.’” Anthony stops and sighs heavily before leaning back into the couch and closing his eyes.  He doesn’t open them as he says, “Basically, they’re inviting Immortals to talk about how to deal with Immortals.”

“Are you going to go?” Kris asks after a beat of silence.

Anthony opens his eyes again and looks at the letter.  “We don’t have a game that day,” he says.  “Which is good ‘cause you’ll have to go with me.”

“Oh, do I?” Kris asks, lifting an eyebrow and trying to inject as much levity into his voice as he could – trying to break the undercurrent of tension.

Anthony’s lips quirk into a brief smile before his head lolls over to look at Kris.  “Yeah, man.  I’m sorry.  I know you’re not completely defenseless, but I would never forgive myself if something happened while I was gone.”

A part of Kris wants to chafe at Anthony’s overprotectiveness, except that Anthony’s always been like this – since long before there was ever an inkling that the scar on his neck was two nearly thousand years old.

Another part of Kris revels in it – he doesn’t look forward to anything having to do with taking another person’s life – even if they were after his (“You’ll get over that,” Anthony had said when Kris told him that.  “You’ll have to, or you’ll be dead.”).

“Sounds fun,” Kris finally says, taking the paper from Anthony and reading it over himself. 

The letter went on to say that for security reasons, the names of the other Immortals invited wouldn’t be disclosed until the time of the hearing.  The letter also politely reminded Anthony that no weapons of any kind were permitted within government buildings, so “all swords, knives, axes, and other bladed weaponry” were explicitly banned.

“If anything, this’ll give me a chance to catch up with some old friends,” Anthony says, pushing himself up and off the couch, stretching his arms above his head.  “Assuming they go, anyway.  Large groups of our kind together usually don’t end well.”

“Who would you see?” Kris asks, just to keep the conversation going.

“Well, you already know about Ian Kinsler and Brian Anderson,” Anthony says.  “But they may be too young, so I don’t know if they’ll be called before Congress or not.  If they’re contacting me, they’ll definitely contact Billy – and by extension, Charles, so—”

“When you say ‘Billy and Charles’, are you talking about—”

“—the two dads of Mason and Sidney Crosby?  Of course,” Anthony says.  “I’ve known Billy since his name was Arminius; he’s only a hundred years older than I am, though he acts like it’s a thousand.” 

Anthony disappears into the kitchen, coming back out with two beers.

“Arminius was one of the few of us who never settled down with humans,” Anthony says.  “He has this huge bit of land in Germany that he’s somehow managed to keep hold of for almost two thousand years and a mansion that he’ll only venture out from once every other decade.”

Anthony goes on and tells Kris about how it just so happens that that one of those times Billy went out for some fresh air – he went up to London where he was caught by a press gang, before he was saved by pirates, then became a pirate, all before falling in love with a pre-Immortal pirate who was then hanged. 

“So, you know what he did?” Anthony asks, gesturing to nothing with his beer.  “He whisked his still-dead love away back to Germany where he let him revive, trained him, and now they are currently living out their happily ever after by raising horses and a bunch of intensely athletic orphans.”

Kris just blinked over at Anthony.

“There’s one thing to be said about being immortal,” Anthony says, “life is never boring.”  Then he gives Kris a wink and takes a long drink.

“Who knows,” Kris says, putting the bottle to his lips, but not tipping it back yet.  “Maybe a hundred years from now, someone will be talking about us this way.”

“I can see it,” Anthony says, lifting a hand up and running his fingers through Kris’s hair.  “I’m sure this is something everyone will be talking about for a long time to come.”

Suddenly the image of Anthony lying dead on the stairs of the dugout – his eyes open wide, blood still pouring out of him – flashes briefly through his mind.  Something of it must register on his face, because Anthony’s leaning in and pressing a soft, gentle kiss to Kris’s lips – chasing away the image.

 

-

 

As it happens, the Cubs are in D.C. two days before Anthony was asked to appear before Congress.  They play their games against the Nationals and Kris meets up with Bryce for dinner (Anthony’s in a nearby restaurant, close enough they can sense each other, but far enough away he isn’t hovering).

Immediately, Bryce pulls Kris in for a hug – and shit, Kris had almost forgotten how good a hugger Bryce is.

“Fuck, man,” Bryce says as he pulls back, holding Kris at an arm’s length as he looks him up and down, inspecting him.  He’s shaking his head slightly as if he were looking for something to say.  He settles on just meeting Kris’s eyes and saying, “ _Fuck_.”

Kris chuckles and nods along.  “Yeah,” he says, giving Bryce a little shove before they both sit.

The restaurant is nice enough that no one bothers him or looks at him, but not so nice that their street clothes lift any eyebrows.  Quiet is all that Kris wants, right now – something to take his mind off what would be happening tomorrow.

“Ground rules for today,” Bryce starts, picking up his menu, “we’re going to talk about your newfound immortality for exactly five minutes and then not at all.  Good?”

Kris can’t help but smile at Bryce as he says, “Yeah.  Good.”

“Good,” Bryce says, emphasizing the word with a nod.  Then the waitress is coming over for their drink orders and once she’s gone, Bryce jumps right in.  “So, what’s it like?”

Kris could take that in so many directions, he’s not sure where to start – what’s it like to die and then come back?  What’s it like knowing he’s going to have to cut someone’s head off one day?  What’s it like realizing, right there in that restaurant, that he’s going to have to sit back and watch everyone he loves grow old and die, while he’s stuck forever at 25, and he’s just going to have to go on and on and on until someone takes his head?

Kris only had one answer to everything, though.

“It’s scary,” he says, trying to fake a smile.  But the smile doesn’t stick and he can tell from Bryce’s eyes that it only worries him more.  Kris look down at the tablecloth, says, “It’ll be fine.  I have Anthony.”

Bryce snorts at that and Kris immediately looks at him.

“I’m sorry, Kris,” Bryce says, sounding anything but.  “Rizzo didn’t kill you out of the goodness of his heart – he did it because he was being selfish.”

Anger rises quick in his chest as Kris snaps, “Anthony did it because I  _asked_  him to.  I  _begged_  him to do it.”

Bryce looks startled at that and Kris is starting to regret this, but he’s on a roll.

“I had a feeling,” Kris says, lowering his voice, trying to calm himself down, “that it wouldn’t be long before  _someone_  was able to get a bullet in my head or a knife in my chest or  _something_.  If I was going to have my first death, I wanted it to be on my own terms.  And trust me when I say that Anthony was vehemently against it.”

Bryce purses his lips, but doesn’t say anything.  Instead he glances at his watch and says, “Look, it’s almost been five minutes.  Just tell me that you’re okay?  You’re good, right?”

At that, Kris completely deflates and in that moment – he’s just talking to one of his best friends, someone who’s looked after him since they were kids, someone who’s chased off bullies and nightmares and his own self-doubt as they grew up together.

“I’m good,” Kris says.  “I’m scared, yeah.  But, really, Bryce – I’m fine.”

Bryce looks at him long and hard before he nods his head and says, “Okay.  Fine.”  Then he’s looking back down at the menu.  “So, how about that cold front coming through this weekend?”

Kris laughs and says, “I hate the cold.”

 

-

 

“I doubt anyone would come after your head here,” Anthony says, squeezing Kris’s hand as the government car sent for them that morning pulls to a stop in front of the U.S. Capitol building.  (On the steps, Anthony recognizes more than a few Immortals who are making their way through a sea of reporters.)

“But you want me to stay close, just in case, right?” Kris asks, his eyes are on the reporters closest to the street who were just then starting to notice their car pulling to a stop.  His eyes slide over to Anthony when Anthony brings Kris’s hand to his lips.

“Please,” he says, his lips grazing over Kris’s skin before pressing a soft kiss there.

Kris tugs Anthony in and kisses him firmly.  They separate and smile at each other.  Then Anthony leans back and pulls a pair of sunglasses out of the inside of his suit jacket and puts them on – Kris does the same.

As soon as the door opens, Anthony – still holding onto Kris’s hand – ducks his head down and hurries through the gauntlet.  The cameras flash incessantly and there’s so many questions coming at Kris from so many directions – but he ignores them all.

 

-

 

They’re directed into what appears to be a make-shift green room for the slowly growing group of Immortals; there’s a table off to the side with snacks and small bottles of water.  When they enter, Kris watches as Anthony’s eyes immediately sweep over everyone gathered before settling on a pair standing not too far from the door – the tallest of which immediately waves them over.

Kris immediately recognizes Billy and Charles Crosby; it’s almost surreal to meet them in person after hearing so much about them not only from the news, but also from Anthony.  Anthony and Billy catch up quickly – filling in a decade’s worth of experiences in just a few words with updates on children growing and grown, the horse ranch, and what the hopes are for the next crop of foals.

Kris has so many questions – but he doesn’t get the chance to ask any of them before a sudden quiet falls over the gathered Immortals.  Kris follows everyone’s gaze to the doorway and sees two men standing there.

“Well, well,” Billy says, straightening.

Kris glances at Anthony.  Anthony meets his eyes and, reading the confusion there, leans forward and says, “That’s Duncan and Connor MacLeod.  Rumor has it that Duncan knows where to find Methos – the oldest of us.  He’ll probably be reporting back to him.”

“No way in hell Methos would come to this thing himself,” Billy says.  “He’s got too much sense.”

Anthony nods in agreement.  “Yeah, makes me wonder what the hell I’m doing here.”

“Because you and I both know what happens next,” Billy says, turning away from the MacLeods as they moved toward a group of female Immortals, one of which presses a lingering kiss to the taller MacLeod’s cheek.

Anthony just nods again.

“What?” Kris asks, when it looks like Anthony won’t be adding anything else.  “What happens next?”

“They’ll look for a way to control us,” Anthony answers.  “First, they’ll make everyone register.  Then they’ll write new laws to be enforced by new committees.  Then the riots, a Gathering – during which most of us will be killed off – maybe two or three Gatherings.  Those who survive will be pursued by Hunters, bounties will be offered; all until the humans think we’re extinct.”

The room around their group had grown silent again, everyone turning to look at Anthony and to listen to what he was saying.  The thing, Kris realizes, is that when someone as old as Anthony begins speaking – everyone shuts up and listens.

“After that,” he continues, his eyes never leaving Kris’s, “we’ll retire to the shadows; pass back into myths and legends.  Right where we ought to be.”  He pitches his voice lower, so just Kris could hear him, “It’s why we need to get your training started as soon as the season’s over.”

“If you really feel no Immortal should be in the spotlight,” a MacLeod calls out, “perhaps you shouldn’t’ve been playing professional sports.  And then maybe _he_ ,” he points at Kris, “would still be human.”

Kris tenses – feeling his hackles rise.  He didn’t know who this guy was, but he had no right to judge Anthony – and, if the guy wanted to be able to walk out of there, he’d better not say anything else since Anthony’s temper had been shorter these last few months, and Kris doubted that he’d be able to stop him from throwing any punches.

But Anthony barely reacts – just shrugs a shoulder and says, “If I wanted your opinion, Connor, I’d ask for it.”  He turns just the slightest so he can look Connor in the eyes.  “Otherwise, I’d shut the fuck up.”

“Duncan,” Billy calls out, looking at the other MacLeod, who was standing just behind Connor, “it’d probably be wise to collect your cousin before he does something stupid.”

Kris watches as Duncan gently puts a hand on Connor’s arm and pulls him back towards their group.

A not-completely-uncomfortable silence passes over their group.

Then a pair of interns are walking into the room.

“The schedule for interviews are as follows…”

 

-

 

Kris isn’t allowed into the Chamber and neither is the press.  He can only watch as Anthony kisses his hand before disappearing through the door with Billy and Charles.

To his surprise, none of the other Immortals make a move towards him – instead choosing to keep their eyes politely averted.  Kris distracts himself with his phone: reading texts, checking social media, sending texts, checking social media, reading articles about him and Anthony and any other Immortal the media knew would be there.

And he tries to forget about Anthony’s dire predictions.

 

-

 

One hour passes and then two and three, and Kris is struggling to stay awake.  Then Anthony is finally walking back through the door, Billy and Charles just behind him who look exhausted.

Except Anthony.

Anthony just looks pissed.

“How did it go?” Kris asks, rising to his feet and pocketing his almost-dead phone.

Anthony rolls his eyes before immediately taking Kris’s hand and pulling him in for a brief kiss.  “Let’s just go home,” he says, “I tell you about it on the way.”

Kris nods once and they start to leave.  But then Billy’s stepping in front of them and he’s holding a hand out to Kris.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, shaking Kris’s hand.  “You’ve got a great teacher.  If you need anything, come and find us.”

“I will,” Kris says, awed at the sudden offer.  “Thank you.”

 

-

 

As soon as they’re in the car, Anthony settles back – sighing deeply, and still holding Kris’s hand.  Kris doesn’t press Anthony to start talking, instead he just watches him.

There wasn’t a whole lot of difference between Anthony, his biggest crush and favorite teammate, and  _Anthony_ , the Immortal who’s lived hundreds of years and thousands of lives. 

But there was enough of one that when Kris thinks about it – about the day where he and Anthony were sitting in the clubhouse, theirs and everyone else’s eyes glued to the televisions in the center of the room, Lester Holt calmly telling them that Immortals were real – he realizes that he had watched the change.

Anthony had always been loose and easy going, keeping his anger and frustration at bay easily.  But as Lester began naming Immortals, even eventually showing Anthony’s own picture and saying his name, Anthony’s presence had seemed to shift – becoming heavier, a line of tension settling on his shoulders and around his eyes. And seeing him today, talking easily with Billy about centuries long past – it’s like he’s no longer holding anything back.

Kris still sees the man he fell in love with during their first months playing together, it’s just that now Anthony seems so…  _unrestricted_.  Like looking at a circus tiger and only ever knowing it as a cat performing its tricks – jumping through the ring of fire. 

Kris knew Anthony was dangerous, had watched the video of Anthony challenging the Reds’ dugout over and over, had himself pulled Anthony out of more than one scrum while Anthony snarled out vicious threats. 

But with just the click of a mouse from someone with WikiLeaks, and a few words from Lester Holt, the act was dropped and the ring of fire had been dropped to the floor – catching the tent on fire as the tiger yawns, bored and free.  (Kris is sure this metaphor has gotten away from him, but Anthony’s hand is still warm around his and the feeling of it never fails to make him feel light-headed.)

 

-x-

 

End Chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previous versions of this fic had Blackbeard (the _Black Sails_ version) as a character, but he didn't fit into the larger 'verse I'm working on, so he's been written out.


	2. It Fucking Figures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oct 3: Fic has been split into two parts and cleaned up; one or two scenes have been added, but nothing that changes the story.

-z-

 

The rest of the season passes in a blur of different cities and moving in with Anthony and getting take out and  _baseball_.

Because even though sometimes Kris feels like the walls are closing in around him – it all just fades to the back as soon as he’s got his jersey on and he’s standing at home, his eyes on the pitcher’s glove.

The media eventually moves on, becoming wrapped up in Ian Kinsler and Brian Anderson’s centuries-long romance – there’s even talk of making a movie.

 

-

 

They make the playoffs, but not the finals of the World Series and Anthony goes with him back to Vegas so they can lick their wounds.  The two weeks they spend there is tense – with Kris’s parents barely looking at or speaking to him or Anthony.  It’s heartbreaking for him.

“I found a forge up the road,” Anthony tells him one night after a dinner where the tension in the air hadn’t been quite as bad as the previous ones.  They’re standing at the backyard screen door, looking at the blood-red sunset; Kris listening to his parents shuffling the dishes in the kitchen.  “I can work on your sword here if you want, so we don’t have to leave.”

Kris hesitates – they were due to leave for Anthony’s forge in Kentucky early next week, but he knows he doesn’t want to leave things like this with his parents.  Not when he’s not sure how much time they have left between them.

“Do you remember what your mother looked like?” Kris asks, looking over at Anthony - the reds of the sunset seemingly making the scar on his neck even more prominent.

Anthony swallows, shakes his head, “No,” he says.  He looks over and meets Kris’s eyes.  “Sometimes, I think I do.  I remember a dark woman with darker hair, wearing a light brown tunic as she picked grapes,” he shakes his head again and looks away, “but then I’m never sure if it’s a memory of  _her_ , or someone I saw once, or just a dream all together.”

Kris feels his eyes beginning to burn as he turns away from the sun and away from Anthony.

“That won’t happen to you,” Anthony says to Kris’s back, stopping Kris in his tracks.  “You were born in an age of photographs and recorded videos and computers.  You’ll always have her with you in some way or another.”

Kris wipes at his face and he looks up just in time to see his mother coming at him, tears on her own cheeks as she wraps him up in her arms, holding him tight.

 

-

 

For the next week, Anthony begins disappearing for most of the day.  “The shop isn’t ready for ‘smithing just yet,” he says, crawling gingerly into the bed beside Kris.  They slept in the guest bedroom – the bed in Kris’s room only a twin, a remnant from his childhood days his parents weren’t quite ready to give up.

“Why’s that?” Kris asks.

“The equipment there is just old and rusted,” Anthony answers, his eyes slipping closed.  “I’ve been hauling all that shit out to make room for the new stuff.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Kris asks, poking Anthony in his shoulder.  “You didn’t have to do it by yourself.”

Anthony opens his eyes just long enough to pull Kris towards him.  “It’s fine, you need this time with your family,” he says into Kris’s hair.  “I wouldn’t be much company anyway – I’m still thinking about what I’m going to make you.”

Kris wants to argue, but he knows by the way Anthony’s voice is trailing off that it would all be one-sided in just a few minutes.

“Whatever you make me,” Kris says, “I’m sure it’ll be awesome.”

“Yeah,” Anthony says, his voice so low Kris can barely hear him.  “Awesome.”

 

-x-

 

Barging into his office, Jed Hoyer says: “There’s something you need to see.”

Theo lifts an eyebrow at the intrusion, but then he notices the manic glint in Jed’s eyes and he’s on his feet, following his assistant outside, the email he’d been reading temporarily abandoned.

“I think we found our new first baseman,” Jed is saying as he signals to one of the coaches, who in turn signals to the pitcher on the mound.

Theo can’t see who’s at base – they’ve got their back to him – but he keeps watching as the guy gets into his stance, standing practically on top of home.  Theo glances at his pitcher, sees his lip curling in irritation and indignation.

Then there’s the pitch and the crack of it off the bat and the ball is  _gone_.

Theo’s eyes are still on the sky, barely hearing Jed call out, “Come over for a second, Rizzo.”

 _Rizzo_.

Theo’s head snaps to the side and he suddenly remembers that email:  _Anthony Rizzo is in your area of Fort Myers and his assigned Watcher was in a car wreck.  Since your charge has recently passed on, we need you to keep a close eye on Anthony for a few days until we can get someone else over.  Expect to find him around sandlots, looking for pick-up baseball games.  He might even visit your team during Spring Training._

Rizzo is still smirking at Theo’s pitcher and Theo takes the time to recover before their eyes meet.

“He’s done that nearly every pitch,” Jed is saying, “against just about everyone we have here.  I think he’d be a good addition.”

“I think you’re right,” Theo says, extending his hand towards Rizzo.  “Theo Epstein, GM.”

“Anthony Rizzo,” Rizzo says, shaking Theo’s hand firmly, “I’d like a chance to be your first baseman.”

Theo nods, glances down to the left of Rizzo’s neck – sees the scar there – and looks back up to meet Rizzo’s eyes.  “I think we can make that work.”

 

-

 

_Good morning, Council,_

_As you may have already heard, I have signed Anthony Rizzo to the Red Sox.  There is no need to send anyone else out as I will be more than willing to take up his Chronicle.  If this is agreeable, please have his previous Watcher forward the usual pass-on information._

_Regards,_

_Theo Epstein_

 

-

 

Theo always wonders if he should tell Anthony what he knows about him, but he never does. 

Even after the Reveal, he doesn’t say anything – thankful whoever the idiot was that dumped everything didn’t release the names of the Watchers themselves, probably knowing the danger it would put them all in.

Not all Immortals had been treated well by the Reveal with many Watchers reporting that their charges had lost jobs and spouses and friends – some had even purposefully sought head hunters to surrender their heads and their quickening.

He tried his best to shield Anthony from as much of the outside as he could, but then the baseball world learns about Kris (he still can’t bring himself to watch the security footage from the day the sniper came for Kris). 

Theo knew how that was going to end even, he thinks, before Anthony did.

(“You don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Anthony had said.

 _I knew I wouldn’t_ , Theo had wanted to say, biting his tongue at the last second.  “Fine,” he’d said instead.  Then he immediately went to his office to update his journal and sent word to headquarters – or what was left of it after the Reveal and the chaos that had ensued afterwards – that he would be starting work on Kris’s Chronicle.)

 

-

 

He doesn’t need to follow them, things aren’t like they used to be – Immortals were easier track now, especially famous ones.  Instead he monitors their social media; notes when pictures of them “out in the wild” as it were, are posted; and occasionally he’ll text one of them, playing the worried GM, checking in with them and asking after their winters (in fairness, he does this with all of his players and coaches – it’s just two of them whose answers he writes down).

 

-x-

 

Kris goes with Anthony to the forge the day after the metal Anthony had ordered arrives at the house.  They get up early, before the sun, and head out.

The old forge Anthony had found was just outside of town, flanked on the left by a dead tree and on the right by piles of the old equipment Anthony had been telling Kris about, along with large tubs of rusted scrap metal.

Anthony immediately gets to work, setting his two small boxes of metal – one iron, one steel – down on the workbench, before throwing on a leather apron, and walking over to a pile of coal.  He flicks a switch beside it and Kris can hear the sound of a fan.

“While I appreciate the advancements in bladesmithing,” he tells Kris as he drops a piece of burning newspaper into the center of a pile of coal, letting it burn before grabbing what looked like crowbar to Kris, to move the coals around in front of him, a large plume of smoke drifting up, “I’ll always love coal forges.  They get hotter and help me move the metal faster.”

Kris nods before looking back over to the box of small metal plates.  “I still don’t understand how these will make a sword,” he says.

Anthony glances up and smirks.  “Don’t worry, Kris,” he says, “I’ll show you.”  He continues to tend to the forge until the flames are jumping high, then he turns to the bucket of coal Kris hadn’t noticed before and adds more coal to the top of the pile.

From a drawer at Kris’s hip, Anthony pulls out two gloves and sets them aside.

“Now don’t let these little plates fool you,” Anthony says, pulling out several pieces of steel from one box, and the same number from the iron box, before shoving the boxes to the side.  He then begins stacking the plates – alternating iron and steel – as he says: “They’ll be more than enough to make you something that’ll last you a hundred years.  But, since  _I’m_  the one making it,” he winks at Kris, “it’ll last you three hundred.”

Kris laughs and says, “Okay.  You still haven’t told me what kind of sword I’m getting.”

“It’s behind you,” Anthony says, gesturing with a nod of his head.  “It’s not based off any one sword, it’s got a little of everything.”

Kris looks behind him – sees several large sheets of paper taped to the wall.

“It’ll be as long as your bats and only a little heavier,” Anthony says, his voice distant as Kris takes in the designs in front of him.

The blade in front of him looks simple but elegant, the tip of it tapering into a long point.  The designs for the hilt are spread across the other sheets – as if Anthony has yet to decide on one.  Immediately, Kris’s eyes zero in on one of the designs, drawn in the corner and in careful and explicit detail.

It's a bear’s head coming out of the top of the pommel, its jaws opened wide in a roar.

“You like that one?” Anthony asks.

“Yeah,” Kris says, not quite ready yet to look away from it.

“Me, too,” Anthony says, then he’s turning his attention back to the plates in front of him.

 

-

 

Even with the doors to the shop opened wide, the forge stays hot – able to beat out the desert’s winter air.

Anthony had welded the iron and steel plates together, creating what he called a billet, before welding that to a metal rod.  Then he picks up a grinder and cuts alternating grooves along the top and bottom of the billet.

“These,” Anthony had said as he gestured to the grooves, “are going to create a nifty little pattern in the blade.”

Kris had  _hm_ ’d appropriately as he watched Anthony set the grinder down and bury the billet into the coal.  As it heated, Anthony explained the purposes of the equipment around them – how they worked and what had come before.

“I fucking love this fan, Kris,” Anthony says, pointing to an add-on under the coal.  “Back in the day, I had to either compress a bellow myself every few minutes or have an apprentice do it.  It was a pain in the ass.”

 _Back in the day_. 

Words Anthony had said often in the past few hours.  Kris’s side hurting from laughing so hard as Anthony told his stories about his (mis)adventures in bladesmithing and the various injuries incurred along the way; about Immortals who either begged or threatened him into making their swords – the latter of which never surviving long enough to attempt to make good on their threats.

All the while, Anthony never slows down in his work.  He moves the billet back and forth from the forge to the large pneumatic press – letting the machine do the hard work of compressing the metal – before burying it back into the coals.

As the day goes on, the stories slow and a comfortable almost-silence falls between them (the workshop itself is loud with the hum of the forge fan, the groaning of the press, and Kris is thankful for the ear protection Anthony had insisted on).

Anthony’s stopped going to the press and has instead moved to the pneumatic air hammer – and Kris watches on in fascination as the hammer draws out the steel, lengthening it considerably.

Then he’s setting the steel on an anvil, and picking up a hammer himself.

The muscles of Anthony’s arm bulge and flex with each heft and downward strike of the hammer against metal.  Kris runs his eyes over the rest of Anthony – his face and hands were covered with soot, as sweat tricked down his temple, over his cheek, and down his neck before disappearing underneath his shirt.

Kris shuffles in his seat and the movement caught Anthony’s sharp eyes. Suddenly he's dropping the hammer and abandoning Kris’s almost-sword and in just a few strides, he looms over Kris before bending over to kiss him.

 “I’ll be at a stopping point in half an hour,” he says, kissing Kris again.  When he pulls back, he’s grinning childishly. “I can’t believe hammering some steel does it for you.  And here I thought it was just my baseball skill that attracted you.”

Kris snorts, knows that Anthony knows the absurdity of his words.

 

-

 

The smell of coal smoke and metal follows them all the way home, sticking in Kris’s nose even through his long shower with Anthony.

 

-

 

“You ready?” Anthony asks.

“What are we doing again?” Kris asks, his eyes on the long curve of metal Anthony had sitting in the forge.

“Quenching,” Anthony answers, “it’ll harden the metal and sometimes there’s lots of fire.  Hopefully, the blade will stay straight and I won’t find any cracks.  But sometimes, it’ll warp or break.  So,” he looks up from the fire, a nervous smirk on his face, “you ready?”

Kris takes a deep breath and nods.

Anthony nods back and takes his own deep breath, before pulling the glowing metal out of the forge and dipping it into a tall and skinny container filled with oil – flames jumping out and up at them both.

“Oh,  _shit_ ,” Kris laughs, darting backwards.

Anthony echoes his laugh as he slowly pulls the blade out of the container, grabbing a nearby rag and wiping the metal down.  His eyes run up and down the sword, holding it out in front of him as he looks down at the spine.

“Hot damn, Kris,” he says, “I think we’ve got it.”

“Yeah?” Kris asks, unable to keep the giddiness out of his voice.

Anthony looks up and says, “Yeah.”  Then he’s setting it down carefully on the table before turning back to Kris.  “Let’s get lunch and then I’ll get to work on the pommel – I can at least get the bear done and quenched today.”

 

-

 

The whole of the thing takes less than two weeks.  During that time, the tension between Kris and his parents eases almost completely. Bryce even stops by the house for dinner, or the forge for lunch, his arms laden with Mrs. Harper’s homemade cooking.

“She says that just because you can’t die now, doesn’t mean you should stop eating well,” he says.

Kris would roll his eyes, because he eats just fine, thank you.  Instead he waves Bryce into the shop and gets Anthony to stop working long enough to eat.  Sometimes Bryce leaves right after, sometimes he stays and he and Kris talk and watch Anthony work until the sun goes down.

Bryce is there when Anthony finishes the sword.  They both watch as Anthony stands up from his work bench and walks over to them.

“Here,” he says, holding it out with two hands.  He jerks his head towards the workbench, “The scabbard needs a little more work, but the blade itself is finished.”

If he says anything else, Kris doesn’t hear him over the sound of his jaw dropping against the concrete floor of the forge.

The blade is ladder-pattern Damascus – a series of undulating light and dark waves that travel up and down the length of the sword, seemingly meeting together right at the tip of the sword.  The pommel is red stained maple wood – the same Kris uses for his bats – at the tip of which is the roaring bear’s head; each fang is pulled out of the main bit of metal, each hair painstakingly denoted.

“What if I break it?” Kris asks, carefully taking the sword from Anthony.

Anthony snorts.  “As if you could,” he says.  Then his hand is flashing out and he knocks the blade out of Kris’s hand – the clanging of metal falling against concrete eliciting a shocked gasp from Kris.

Anthony laughs even as he scoops the sword off the floor – then suddenly he’s not laughing anymore and he darts forward, grabs Kris by the collar of his shirt, kicks his leg out from under him, and swings the sword towards Kris’s throat – stopping just short of making contact.

“Lesson one, Kris,” he says, voice serious and for the first time – Kris feels  _fear_  curling his chest, fear of  _Anthony_ , “ _never_  drop your sword.  Even if you think you’re around friends.  Nothing kills young Immortals quicker than complacency and trust.”

“Should I not trust you?” Kris asks, swallowing thickly, feeling the hard steel he had just been admiring beginning to bite into the thin skin of his neck.  He sees Bryce starting to move out of the corner of his eye, but a quick, hard look from Anthony stays him.

When Anthony turns back to Kris, he says: “You can.”  Then he’s taking a step back and helping Kris to his feet.  “But you might not always be able to.  Forever is a long time and people are always changing.”

 

-

 

They don’t stay in Nevada long after that.  After Kris says his goodbyes, Anthony whisks them away to South Dakota – to Charles and Billy’s thousand-acre horse ranch.

“We’ll train here for a bit,” Anthony says.  “Just the bare basics of sword-handling before we can get back to prepping for the next season.  Sound good?”

Kris nods as he takes a deep breath.

He’s ready.

 

-

 

He's  _not_ ready.  Not if Charles and Anthony’s laughter from the sidelines is any kind of indication.  Gingerly, Kris stands – but he doesn’t have time to brush the dirt from his jeans before Billy’s on him again.

At the end of the day, Charles claps Kris on the back and says, “You got off easy. Billy killed me at least ten times during our first training session.”

Kris’s eyes widen and he glances over at Billy, who was laughing easily with Anthony.

“Anthony?” Kris calls out, his voice high-pitched.  “You’re not going to let him kill me, are you?”

Billy makes an exaggeratedly offended face as Anthony answers, “No, dear, of course not,” before he pulls Kris in for tight hug, pressing loud and wet kisses to Kris’s neck and cheek.

 

-

 

“I think you’ll be just fine,” Anthony says as their plane touches down in Mesa, his hand covering Kris’s – just like it always does when Kris can’t entirely battle back his fear of flying.

Kris nods shakily, still mostly focused on his breathing.

 

-

 

Addi is the first one to throw his arms around Kris, and only because Kris is the first one he sees.  He welcomes them both, asking after their winter and Kris’s training and how he thinks the season will go.

Kris answers the questions readily – easily falling back into baseball talk.

When they get to the locker room, Kris sees a few new faces and he and Anthony hesitate – but they all turns towards them with wide smiles and jaunty waves.  There’s the obligatory round of introductions before everyone’s spilling out either into the gym or onto the field.

 

-

 

It all seems to pass him in a blink.  The season goes on by in a blur of the regular ups and downs of wins and losses; occasionally, the media will ask how his training has come along (“Great; Anthony’s a good teacher, so I’m lucky”) or if he’s been Challenged (“Um, not yet.  There was one close call, but as soon as the guy saw Anthony – he was kinda behind me, still arguing with the hot dog guy – he just turned around and walked off.”).

He and Anthony officially move in together and they often stay up and talk long into the night – Anthony telling him stories, teaching him how to invest his money and how to spread it across different banks to sit for years before coming back to collect; the best places to store belongings if he needs to move suddenly; and giving him the names of Immortals he’ll want to avoid if he plans on making it to his one-hundredth birthday.

Before he knows it, there’s bitterly cold air filling Kris’s lungs and he and Anthony are leaping into each other’s arms and screaming into each other’s faces– the sound of it lost on the roar of the Wrigley faithful on a late October night.

 

-

 

Their first two weeks of winter is spent with Kris’s parents, before Anthony is suddenly rushing into the house, screaming: “Kris, pack your shit - it’s time to  _go_.”  And just like all those months ago, when Anthony shouted for Kris to “ _Get inside!_ ” when he saw the sniper Kris hadn’t, Kris is moving, rushing to obey Anthony’s order.

Instinctually, Kris only grabs the things Anthony had drilled into him over and over that were important – two sets of nondescript clothes, sunglasses, a non-Cubs hat, shoes, and the spare wad of cash from the pillow case.

He hears Anthony telling his parents to lock the house down as soon as they’re gone and no, he can’t tell them where they’re going.  Then Anthony’s at the bedroom door, grabbing a back pack from behind the door that Kris knows has Anthony’s own get-away things.  “I got the swords in the car already,” he says.  “Do you have everything?”

“Yeah,” Kris answers, nodding, trying to breathe through his rising panic because  _shit_ , Anthony’s got blood on the side of his face – coming from a cut on his eyebrow.

“It looks worse than it is,” Anthony says, before he’s grabbing Kris’s hand and pulling him towards the door.

Kris breaks from him as soon as he sees his mom and pulls her in for tight hug – trying to reassure her as much as she was him.

“It’ll be fine,” he says, keeps saying it.

Then Anthony’s pulling him away, saying, “I’m sorry, but we need to go  _right now_.”

Long after they’re in the car, tires screaming as they peel out of the driveway, all Kris can see in his reflection on the glass and in the mirror – is his mom, tears streaming down her face as she yells his name.

 

-

 

They’re on the highway, speeding out of town and heading south and Kris has already dug out the first aid kit and wiped away most of the blood from Anthony’s face – revealing that the cut itself had already healed.  Anthony had told him that one of the perks of getting older was a more potent quickening which healed the body from cuts and scrapes almost instantaneously.

“It’s a double-edged sword, though,” Anthony had said.  “The same thing that heals you fast, is the same thing that gets head hunters after you.”

“Is that who we’re running from?” Kris asks now, still staring out at the long stretch of road in front of them.  “Someone after your quickening?”

“Close,” Anthony says, shifting in his seat and glancing up in the rearview.  “But it’s not me they’re after.”

Kris knows by the way Anthony looks at him who the head hunter was in town for.

“His name’s Hannibal,” Anthony continues.  “Not the one from the history books,” Anthony huffs a quick laugh, as if he remembered something funny, “but he liked the character from the Thomas Harris books and the movies, you know who I’m talking about?  The cannibal?”  Kris nods and Anthony keeps going.  “Yeah, so he changed his name from like, I don’t know, Greg or something, to Hannibal.

“Anyway, he hunts young Immortals.  Typically, ones who haven’t found a teacher yet – but, uh, he kinda hates my guts and I’m guessing he’s coming after you to get back at me.”

“Why does he hate you?” Kris asks, furrowing his eyebrows at Anthony.

“I killed one of his students about twenty or thirty years ago,” Anthony answers.  He shrugs a shoulder, glances again at the rearview, says: “Which, you know, happens.  He wanted the kid to live so bad he should’ve trained him better; should’ve made him wait longer before challenging someone – much less challenging someone like me.”

Kris tries to picture it – a young Immortal like himself trying to challenge someone like Anthony.  And he wonders, if maybe the circumstances had been just a little bit different, if he had gotten a teacher more like Hannibal, would he have been encouraged to challenge an old Immortal.

They bypass the first motel and then the second, before Anthony pulls into the third – the sun having long since set.

“What’s the plan?” Kris asks after Anthony’s paid for their room and they’ve locked the doors.

“We’re going to Tucson,” Anthony says, falling heavily onto the bed – his eyes slipping closed.  “From there, he’ll expect us to cross into Mexico but we’ll just cut East.”

Moving slowly, Kris settles in the bed next to Anthony whose breathing had already slowed.  Kris takes that as his cue.

 

-

 

Kris jerks awake from some unknown nightmare.  Beside him, Anthony is gone.

Kris sits up and rubs at his eyes – then he hears the toilet flush and looks over and sees Anthony coming out of the bathroom.  When he looks up at Kris he startles slightly, says, “Hey.”

Kris shakes his head before he settles back against the pillow, patting the spot beside him.

But Anthony doesn’t get back into the bed, just leans over that space and kisses Kris – bad breath and all – before he pulls back and says, “Sorry, we have to get going.”

Kris groans again and pulls the covers over his head.

 

-

 

They’re on the outskirts of Tucson, on the long stretch of highway between it and Phoenix, when Anthony spots the car that comes flying up behind them and they both shudder as they feel the buzz of the upcoming Immortal.

“What now?” Kris asks, feeling that fear and panic starting to rise in his throat again.

“Stay calm,” Anthony says firmly even as his foot presses harder onto the gas pedal.  “Once we’re in town, I’m going to try to lose him then we’ll split up.”  Before Kris can reject the idea as vehemently as he can, Anthony continues.  “I know you don’t like it, but I’ll be able to draw him off and maybe get the cops chasing both of us.”

“If we can get the cops involved, then why do we need to split up?”

“Because, Kris,” Anthony snaps.  “I don’t want him anywhere near you.  I don’t—” he stops himself.  His eyes dart between Kris and the road and Kris again.  “I think you could take him,” he tries again, “but I don’t want you to have to.  And if you’re there and you have your sword and he out-and-out Challenges you – Kris, I can’t step in.  You would have to end the fight yourself.  I don’t want that for you.  Not yet.”

 Kris doesn’t know why he says what he says next, but he can’t stop himself.  “What if I said that I want it?” he asks.

Anthony flinches.  “I’d say that you don’t know what you’re asking for,” Anthony says.

The traffic around them is getting heavier and it was taking more of Anthony’s concentration to weave between cars while still tracking the Immortal behind them.

“I’m scared,” Kris says, turning in his seat and looking out the back window – trying to see the Immortal’s face.  He turns back to Anthony. “But I don’t want to be.  I want to get this first one out of the way.”

The car slows as Anthony snorts.  “You’re pretty sure of yourself,” he says.

“I had a pretty good teacher,” Kris says easily, forcing himself to smile.

Anthony nods and takes the next exit – what turns out to be a turn for a campground – and sticks his arm out of his window, motioning for Hannibal to follow.  As he’s rolling his window back up, he says under his breath, “This is the dumbest fucking idea.”  Louder, he adds, “At least if he kills you, I’ll get to kill him.”

A laugh is startled out of Kris’s chest as he looks over at Anthony.

But Anthony isn’t laughing as he pulls onto a dirt road and follows it out – getting as far away from the highway as he can.  He isn’t laughing as he gets out of the car to pull Kris’s sword and his own pair from the trunk.  He isn’t laughing when he pulls Kris in for a sweet slow kiss before they both turn to face Hannibal, who was just stepping out of his car, with Kris alone unsheathing his sword and stepping forward.

 

-

 

His guts are hanging out and there’s a sword in his thigh and then Kris is swinging as hard as he can.  Then comes the lightning – bringing a hundred years’ worth of knowledge and power and Kris understands why someone would go hunting for this.

When he comes down from it, it’s dark out and he’s on his side and Hannibal’s sword is on the ground in front of him – still covered in his blood.  Hesitantly, he looks down at his own stomach – heaving a high of relief when he sees that his innards are back where they belong, though the evidence is still all over his shirt and in his jeans.

He tries to sit up, but a wave of vertigo slams into him knocks him back onto his back.  Kris hears footsteps and tries to look around – but then Anthony’s right over him.

“Easy, Kris,” Anthony says.  “You’re going to want to take a few minutes.”

“I fucking figured that one out,” Kris snarls – the vitriol of his words startling him into his own shocked silence.

Anthony doesn’t look surprised at all.  Instead the corner of lip quirks up into a brief smirk. “Sometimes we pick up the traits of those whose heads we’ve taken.  It’ll last a few days as things,” he makes a circular gesture that encompasses Kris’s torso, “settle.  I took this one quickening and I couldn’t eat apples for, like, three months, until I took another from someone who liked apples.”

Kris’s eyes widen.

“It doesn’t happen all the time,” Anthony says, quickly trying to reassure Kris.  “Alright, let’s try this again.”  Then he’s helping ease Kris into a sitting position.  “And look at that,” he says, putting a hand on Hannibal’s sword, “not even two whole years into your Immortality and you’ve got a new sword.  That’s good for someone in this day-and-age.”

Kris tries to roll his eyes, but the vertigo hits him again.  This time, Anthony doesn’t let him sit through it – instead encouraging him to stand up.

“You have to walk—”

“If you say ‘walk it off’,” Kris interrupts, “I’m gonna puke.”

 Anthony just smirks at him.  “I wasn’t going to,” he says.  “I was going to say ‘you have to walk to the car.’  With the injuries that you took, the quickening only healed most of the surface damage – it’ll take a couple hours for the internal stuff to heal, so I need you to get into the car and off your feet.”

 Kris nods and lets Anthony help him towards their car.  He looks around though and can’t find Hannibal.  “Where’s the body?” he asks.

“Put him back in the car,” Anthony says.  “I already submitted an anonymous tip to let the ITF know where they can find Hannibal.”

Anthony leans Kris against the car and opens the back door to ruffle around in Kris’s bag – pulling out a fresh set of clothes – and his own bag – pulling out two bottles of water, soap, a towel, and a trash bag.  Kris takes his clothes off and Anthony bags them up as Kris washes himself quickly.  Then he’s dressed and in the car.

On the highway, they pass an unmarked blue van that turns onto the campground exit.

 

-x-

 

The Immortals Task Force.  The only good thing that came out of the Congressional inquiry. 

The ITF was responsible for monitoring Immortal behavior, working alongside the much-weakened Watchers Society; they could match young Immortals with volunteer teachers, or send them to churches or monasteries willing to accept them.  They also were called in to deal with the aftermath of Challenges, without opening an investigation.

When that latter part had been announced, Anthony had immediately looked over at Billy with a lifted eyebrow.  “Who’d you pay off for that one?” he’d asked.

Billy had met his look head on and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,  _Antonius_.”

“Well, I paid the Speaker,” Anthony said, “and Duncan says that the President owed Methos, so he had her covered.  So, who did you get?  The VP?”

“We got the VP,” Charles piped in as he walked into the room, a light skinned baby on his hip – her mama, who’d been found by Charles and Billy wandering on the side of the road twenty-three years ago, was a vet for the horse ranch she had been raised on.

“See?  Was that so difficult?” Anthony asked.

Kris, still aching from the day’s training session, tried not to laugh too hard.

 

-x-

 

Kris smirks at Jake Arrieta and gets ready to swing – when he does, fear suddenly spikes through his chest and he’s stumbled by the shock of it.  He quickly looks down to make sure there isn’t a sword in his leg and touches his stomach, trying to stop the non-existent blood flow.

 Anthony, who’d been right behind the batting cage, talking to one of the new guys, is right in front of Kris as Kris tries to figure out when it was he doubled over, putting his hands on his knees as he tried to breathe through the panic.

Anthony’s hand is rubbing soothing circles on his back, whispering soft encouragements.

“Breathe through it, Kris,” he says.  “Come back to me, buddy.”

“How am I going to play baseball like this?” Kris asks.

“We all handle the violence a little differently,” Anthony says.  “When you’re young, it can be hard to compartmentalize it.  But you’ll have to figure it out.”

Kris looks up to glare, but Anthony looks like it’s hurting himself just saying it.

“It’s going to suck, Kris,” he says, bringing his other hand up to cup Kris’s cheek.  “I’m sorry for that.  The first few years aren’t easy for any Immortal, especially one raised in a non-violent society.  But this is how it is.”  He straightens them up and brings their foreheads together, his hand firm on the back of Kris’s neck as he stares into Kris’s eyes, “I’m going to be here for you – every step of the way, I’m going to be here.  Okay?”

Kris nods, takes another steadying breath as he puts his forehead on Anthony’s shoulder, leaning into him.

Then they’re pulling apart and Kris notices how his teammates are pointedly not watching them at all.  Anthony must notice at the same time because he turns to Kris, a mischievous glint in his eye, and as Kris is opening his mouth to beg Anthony to rethink his life choices, Anthony has an arm around his waist and is dipping him low – kissing him as loudly and as obnoxiously as he can.

In return, they get a slew of wolf whistles and cheers; from Joe, they get, “No PDA on the field!”

 

-x-

 

_It’s hard to believe it’s been twelve years – so much of the world has changed, baseball has changed – and yet it all seems like just yesterday that the world learned the truth, like just an hour ago that Anthony was telling us that he’d taken Kris’s first death into his own hands._

_My boys have brought home the World Series trophy more times than not these days._

_But today, I lose one of them._

_Anthony Rizzo has chosen to retire – he’s off to find his next adventure, wherever that may be.  Kris Bryant has reassured me that he’ll be staying through at least the end of his contract, which ends in two years._

Theo quits typing, sighs as he rubs at his eyes.

_I look forward to Watching Kris for as long as I am able.  He has taken three heads that I know of – all of his challengers vastly underestimating the lengths his teacher has gone to prepare him for this world._

_And as far as that teacher goes, I am guessing that Anthony will disappear for a while.  But of one thing I am most certain: he will be back for Kris as soon as Kris is ready to leave the Show._

 

-x-

 

Anthony and Kris stick to their normal winter routine – a month in Vegas with Kris’s parents, a month with Charles and Billy and their brood of children and grandchildren, and a month in Florida getting ready for Spring Training.  Except this year, Anthony is sitting by the pool at their winter home – watching Kris jog on the treadmill as he sips at his margarita.

They travel to Arizona together, then to Chicago.

Then Anthony’s kissing him goodbye as he boards a plane to Italy.

“Got to visit the homeland every once in a while,” he says, pulling back but not quite far enough to let Kris go.  “I’ll be back in a few months.”

Kris swallows and nods, even as he presses their foreheads together.

“It’s no time at all,” Anthony says, kissing Kris’s cheek one last time – then he’s stepping away completely and grabbing his bags.  “I’ll call you when I land.”

“You better,” Kris calls after him.

 

-

 

The time flies by and the next time Kris sees Anthony, the Cubs are in their first game of a playoff run – and Anthony’s in the seat just behind home, flanked by Charles and two of the grandkids, Julie and Hillary.  Immediately he runs over and grabs Anthony by the collar of his shirt and kisses him – the crowd around them roaring.

Kris thinks he hears the umpire yelling at him, so he breaks from Anthony – pressing their foreheads together briefly – before jogging back to the plate.

The catcher for the other team gives him a sideways look, but just shakes his head.

Kris just keeps smirking through his first strike, then his second – and then he’s laughing as the ball cracks off the bat and sails straight out to dead center, going up and up before it’s gone.

 

-z-

 

End.


End file.
